Quick Takes

Paul Ryan, the budget wunderkind who was elected speaker only after a united House GOP dragged him into the job, is finding himself in the exact same position as former House Speaker John Boehner: unable to find consensus in his conference.

Just months after being elected as speaker with the promise he’d return the House to what is called “regular order,” Ryan will miss an April 15 deadline to pass a budget even as he still seeks to find consensus around one.

I think that Hillary will know how to get things done. I trust Hillary Clinton on what she is discussing in her plans, in her proposals on trade and on Wall Street reform. As the senior Democrat on the Banking Committee, I take a backseat to nobody in applauding the regulators when they are doing the right things, as they recently did with FDIC and the Fed, and in criticizing those regulators when they’re not tough enough. I think that Secretary Clinton’s proposals, which I had input on with her staff, I think that her proposals will make Wall Street way more accountable than they have been in the past.”

“The danger, whether for Democrats or Republicans, is in a closed-loop system where everyone is just listening to people who agree with them, that you start thinking that the way to get to where I want to go is to simply be as uncompromising as possible and hold the line and not pay attention to or listen to what the other side has to say,” he said. “That is sort of a tea party-type mentality.”

He acknowledged frustration among some Democrats, for instance, that the Affordable Care Act was not more sweeping. But he said that just because someone opts to make concessions in a political process, it does not mean “you must be a sellout, or you must be corrupted, or you must be on the take.”

“A lot of the reason why a lot of Democrats who supported me, and still support me, got frustrated is because a bunch of the country doesn’t agree with me, or them. And they have votes, too,” he said. “If you don’t get everything you want, it’s not always because the person you elected sold you out. It may just be because in our system you end up taking half-loaves.”

* This one is kind of fun. Dylan Matthews says that Hillary Clinton’s answer about who should pay for dates is a great way to explain her political philosophy. Clinton was asked: “Dating as a feminist can be tough. Do you think that men and women should split the bill on a date?” Here’s her answer:

Look, I think splitting the cost on a date has to be evaluated on a kind of case-by-case basis. You know, many years ago I remember doing that, and I know a lot of young people who even today do because they kind of consider more casual dates, group dates, to be ones where everybody pays their fair share, but I think you also have to be alert to the feelings of the person that you are dating. If it’s important to that person to either split in the beginning of the relationship, or for one or the other of you to pay for whatever combination of reasons, you know, you just have to evaluate that and take it into account. So I don’t think there is a hard and fast rule, at least that I have ever seen followed in every instance.

In the comments, let us know how Bernie Sanders would answer that question based on his political philosophy.

* Finally, close your eyes and listen to this one. If you’re like me, you’ll wonder whether or not the great Marvin Gaye has been reincarnated in the body of this young white man…Joey Dosik.

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